ROCKFORD - Summer is like a mirage now for Ken Swope: Small-town midways lined with thrill rides replaced by big-city snowbanks lining icy streets that make for scary walking in a city becoming infamous for hit-and-runs.

Swope, 50, is homeless again this winter, waiting for spring when he can live and travel with a carnival, setting up, running and tearing down a ride called the Cliff Hanger.

Until then, he's just hanging on through a northern Illinois winter that is shaping up to be as brutal as they get.

"It's unbearable at times," Swope said.

He was among the well-layered visitors Friday at Carpenter's Place, where people in jackets, sweaters, T-shirts and snowpants gathered for a meal and the warmth of a furnace.

"You're lucky if you can be out there 10 or 15 minutes," said Swope, who minutes after an interview zipped his jacket against the wind and pointed his beard north toward coffee and the warmth of a fast-food joint a half-dozen blocks away.

Like many of the city's homeless, Swope has a roof over his head at night. Some take beds at homeless shelters. Others, like Swope, stay overnight with friends.

Charles Sherman keeps a sleeping bag at a friend's house. He served 12 years in the Army and knows what cold is.

"This weather is like something in Germany in the winter," he said. "Or the Arctic."

For Sherman, wearing what he said were military aviation coveralls, all you can do in weather like this is "bundle up and put it in the hands of God."

Michael A. Lewis was well-bundled when he left Carpenter's Place with a plastic shopping bag of toiletries, warm socks and a pair of gloves.

"I didn't have any gloves," said the 36-year-old Rockfordian, homeless for a couple of months.

Tonight he'll stay with family.

Saturday night, he's not sure. He resorted once to sleeping in an abandoned building. But it wasn't this cold.

"I won't do that again. It's kind of dangerous," he said.

He gets around mostly by foot these days and doesn't relish walking when it gets this cold.